I started this video last year, but only now got around to finishing it lol. Hope yall enjoy it! Gonna try and get two more videos out before big orange hits the sky so make sure to subscribe so you dont miss those!

I always knew that 4 billion dollars seemed a bit much for the sls

In the OIG report on Orion it stated that at most you'd get a $275m cost savings from reuse, from the pressure vessel

Great vid as always!

Finally, some sensible SLS content

Nice breakdown

I´ve never read an article that would claim the SLS cost per launch was 4,1 billion. It was always the cost of the Artemis stack. As such saying that the SLS is cheaper than we think is hardly accurate because every article I read had the correct number of 2,2 billion. It also makes perfect sense to talk about the Artemis stack as a whole. A commercial rocket would lauch a different payload every launch. SLS on the other hand will probably only launch Orion. It is also quite strange to talk about SLS saving money and then comparing it against a 55+ year old Saturn 5 that was made during a rush to the Moon to beat Russia. SLS program had no such urgency and no need to throw money out of the window. Being cheaper than Saturn 5 is not a win, after 55 years with access to far better technology a rocket build to achieve a similar goal SHOULD be significantly cheaper. And let´s not forget SLS block 1 is lot less capable than Saturn 5. The real comparrison should be against alternative architectures, or commercial alternatives, which we can say with a large degree of confidence would be a lot cheaper. The assuption that block buy of SLS would reduce the price also turned out to be false, according to the newest OIG report. 2,5 billion is the new estimate for Block 1B.

Finally David willis

Accounting is all about how you present the numbers to tell the story you want to be told. The real number is somewhere between the lowest and highest cost figures. I know that's kinda vague but so is government accounting.

Good video from my understanding is that the artemis mission cost is 4.1 billion ORION and HLS included with the SLS cost

Really well said fellow David. I remember that tweet on your thread I made a few months back about the cost breakdown of SLS on multiple missions and how cost decreases will occur with block upgrades and program maturity, but people STILL stubbornly believe that figure, and I think that’s just out of hate, because it’s not hard to understand. Those people are just drinking Elon coolade if they think starship will instantly mature through nonexistent economies of scale to $2M, which it’ll never reach in the realms of Elon coolade

good video

1.5 bn $ for future missions. So 11.5 k$ per kg for LEO and 33.3 k$ per kg for TLI in 2025? F9 today is capable of launching at 70ish m$ with huge margin. So 4.4 k$ per kg to LEO. While being crew rated, too. Saturn V was at ~ 1.1 bn $ per launch. So 9.2 k$ per kg to LEO and 23.9 k$ per kg to TLI. In 1970! So Saturn V was cheaper than SLS despite being the first of it's kind, without modern computers, aaaall the years of experience in building and managing rockets and launches. So the cost benchmark shouldn't be Saturn V, it should be Saturn V halved at least due to modern technology and lots of experience (over 50 years!).

Still seems like such a shame to be using these flight-proven engines that've been around for decades, on a rocket that's just going to throw them out completely after using them once :(

you are right when saying that orion is a payload and should not be included in the price of the launch vehicle. however, i'm not sure if other rockets such as delta iv could sned it beyond leo

I wish astronauts were on artemis 1! they had astronauts on the very first flight of the space shuttle!

As much as I LOVE SLS and Orion, that price tag makes me wince a little. Lets hope that the (by far) most beautiful rocket ever made can keep's it's cost down.

I agree with it being silly to count the cost of payload in with the launch cost. However, you did gloss over the ground systems. Those are very much tied to the rocket launch cost, and I think should be counted. And ~$2.7 billion for initial missions and ~$2 billion for following missions is still an INCREDIBLE amount of money. As far as I'm aware, no planned missions for SLS couldn't be done on a Falcon Heavy for under $0.2 billion. In fact, a few things planned for SLS have been moved to Falcon Heavy, like some lunar gateway modules and the Europa Clipper satellite. Not even gonna get into Starship, because there's just too many question marks (NASA selecting it as the HLS is still puzzling to me). Elon says it'll be $2 million for the same mass to LEO as SLS, which is incredibly unbelievable. I'll eat my hat if it's under $100mil to launch Starship, but the sky high costs of SLS leave Starship a whole lot of room to be a cheaper alternative, even if they do need several launches to match the mass to TLI of SLS.

It’s actually 8 billion when you include development costs over the first 10 flights.

what happens to costs when they run out of reused shuttle parts ?

Let's just take the $2.8b number at face value, I think it's pretty close either way, to make some points- - Launch ~56 Falcon 9s (840t LEO) - ~30 Vulcan Centuars ( 810t LEO) - 12 Dragon 2s ( 48ppl LEO) - 7 Starliners (28ppl LEO) You can do either one of those for the cost of one single SLS launch (4ppl/105t LEO).

WHAT ABOUT THE PROJECT CANCELLATION COSTS FOR THE CONSTELLATION PROGRAM AND THE ARES SERIES OF ROCKETS??? THIS MUST HAVE RAN INTO MANY MILLIONS MAYBE EVEN BILLIONS OF DOLLARS ADDED TO THE HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY THAT WAS ALREADY INVESTED INTO THIS CANCELLED PROJECT ! ! ! ? ? ?🤔

This is just a bunch of rationalizations for an outrageously cost-overrun system.

Even 2 billion per launch is so much higher than strarship's entire cost. It's insane, how SLS can even compete...

sls better

I keep hearing people say that the SLS core stage has no heritage with any existing components. That’s not true. It’s just an extended external fuel tank from the shuttle with a redesigned oxygen tank. This was done so that the same assembly line could be used for SLS cores as for shuttle external tanks with minimal changes, which saved further money.

13:33 You got my name wrong ;( -Now imma cancel my membership-

You won't launch SLS without ESG or Orion????? Bro what are you saying

If the point is to get humans to the moon, how can you possibly not include the ridiculous cost of Orion? This cost is even less justifiable than the idiotic cost of SLS.

This Rocket will fly at most 5 times.. maybe. Once starship is ready SLS is dead dead..

First

Well Starship will be ~ 20 million USD

The space industry is much more established at this point, if the SLS dev cost wasn't significantly less than Saturn V's I'd be incredibly surprised. SLS is nothing inherently innovative- no refueling, reuse, wet workshopping, or IVF.

The fact anyone can justify this Transparent defrauding of taxpayers is ridiculous. Looking forward to the day they cancel this monstrosity.

This video is misleading at best if not actual bad faith. The cost IS 4.1 billion and you can't arbitrarily exclude parts of it just because you don't like them. Orion is the ONLY payload currently manifested to be launched with SLS and excluding the ground system costs is as absurd as not counting the propellants both things you literally can't do without. Also the OIG report clearly states that the per launch cost doesn't include any dev cost. And even IF they get it down to $1.5 billion it'll be an insane cost just the same considering that by that time Starship, Vulcan and even New Glenn should be operational and, spoiler, none of those will cost nearly as much. And no the fact that you could do one launch with SLS instead of multiple with some other rocket is irrelevant if the total cost of a single SLS launch exceeds the combined cost of multiple commercial options

Still with the loud background music… 🥲 makes it hard to focus